TLF/BLF/Lumintop FW3A review (18650, 3x XP-L HI cool white)

Thank you maukka, very well done!! :+1:

Very impressive you were able to perform your usual, very thorough review so quickly. Thanks!

It sounds like muggle mode thermal control is perhaps overly aggressive. I’m sure it would be fine to just step down to max 1x7135. However, since it’s not intended for the primary user of the light, ~38 minutes of max muggle output should still be ample for most loaners.

I suppose the big drop off might also encourage muggles to be a little more disciplined with their output level and less likely to hand you back a light with an empty battery.

Excellent review!!!

Amazing work as always. I especially like the charts, very useful!

The beam’s a bit flooder than I expected tbh so will be interesting to see how it looks with a clear or polished optic.

Is there much room in the head for an MCPCB and additional cables? Would love to see aux boards for this light! Provided a kind soul makes them of course :slight_smile:

This was meant to be a production sample, but it looks like some of the internals don’t match their final form. Specifically, I’ve noticed a few things out of spec on mine… things which I hear will be corrected for actual production:

  • Emitter CCT (yours is ~6000K, mine is ~4000K, actual target is ~4875K)
  • Optic (mine looks like it’s 10508 or 10509, target is 10511)

If the beam has zero visible artifacts with XP-L HI, it’s probably not 10511. To check, turn the light on and point it at a light-colored wall from about 20 cm away. Rotate the light around its beam axis. There should be visibly brighter spots around the edges like the hour markers on a clock, which rotate around the hotspot. If there aren’t any “hour markers”, it’s not a 10511 optic.

Mine also had some other minor differences:

  • Firmware version is slightly older than the most recent one I sent, so double-click-from-off still turns off before going to the ceiling level. That may or may not be updated on production drivers.
  • Someone played with mine before sending it, so the ramp ceiling wasn’t default. It may be worth manually resetting yours to make sure it’s actually at the highest regulated level (21 clicks during the ceiling option).
  • Thermal calibration on mine was way off, so it thought room temperature was over 40 C.

So I’m planning to get a new optic before I post any throw data. The 5A/5D-ish tint on mine is not what I consider ideal, but it’s a lot nicer than the SST-20 4000K 95CRI light I used to have.

Thanks for the review maukka. :beer:

Thanks :+1:

That does not sound very production-ish :zipper_mouth_face:

Differences in off-the-shelf parts, as long as the expected parts will be implemented in actual production, don’t concern me too much.

If this is a production test of the custom parts: machining and final driver, tail PCB, MCPCB, etc, that still seems significant enough to reasonably call a production test.

The firmware difference is a bit of a puzzle though. I hope they didn’t have 1800+ drivers built and flashed with an older version of the firmware.

There isn’t much difference between the version it came with and the latest version. The only user-visible differences are:

  • Double-click from off no longer turns off before going to the ceiling level.
  • I added a potential workaround for moon flicker issues, but those have only been reported on Fireflies lights, not on any other brands, so it probably doesn’t matter for the FW3A.

Thanks, there was no artifacts. I’ll have to go through my stash of optics to compare.

great review

thanks Maukka!

:+1: :beer:

Here’s the effect of different Carclo optics to throw. My sample had the 10508 installed by default, but the production light should have the 10511. This was measured at the 1x7135 level and scaled to maximum output for repeatability.

Also, added stepped ramp default (78 lm) runtime https://i.imgur.com/uTsDSDI.png and measured maximum output with 50% drained 30Q (1980 lm @ 0 sec, 850 lm at 30 sec)

edit: fixed the table, it had wrong values

/\ … Very good info. :+1: . Much appreciated. :beer:

edit2: filled the CRI table with rest of the modes https://i.imgur.com/B3mgGg3.png

No real change in tint or CRI within the 7135 modes. Will add CIE tint graph soon, added https://i.imgur.com/el07LR1.png

Measured standby current at a negligible 28 µA

[quote=ToyKeeper]

Shouldn’t that be Double-click from ON no longer turns off before going to the ceiling level?

Double click from ON always goes to turbo, not ceiling. Double click from OFF goes to ceiling max first. Previously when you double clicked from OFF, the light turned on and off quickly before going to ceiling. This is the case with my review light with old firmware as well.

The FW3A on turbo with a 30Q heats up to about 50°C when the thermal limit is set to 55°C. It stabilizes at around 46-48°C. This is a good setting for not burning your hand. Also loving how quickly the heat transfers to the battery tube from the head.

In case we do end up with the slightly older version of the firmware (not that it sounds like a big deal), the FW3A has accupuncture style flashing holes, right? At least, I think that’s what I heard but I don’t have time to check at the moment. I’ll search some posts later when I get time, assuming nobody has already answered by then. Reflashing should be somewhat easy if this is the case though.